Chapter 2: Operating-System

Services

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Operating System Services
 Operating systems provide an environment for execution of programs and
services to programs and users
 One set of operating-system services provides functions that are helpful to
the user:
• User interface (UI) - Varies between Command-Line (CLI),
Graphics User Interface (GUI), touch-screen, Batch
• Program execution - The system must be able to load a program into
memory and to run that program, end execution, either normally or
abnormally (indicating error)
• I/O operations - A running program may require I/O, which may
involve a file or an I/O device
• File-system manipulation - Programs need to read and write files
and directories, create and delete them, search them, list file
Information, permission management.

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Operating System Services (Cont.)
 Communications – Processes may exchange information, on the
same computer or between computers over a network
 Error detection – OS needs to be constantly aware of possible errors
• Debugging facilities can greatly enhance the user’s and
programmer’s abilities to efficiently use the system
 Resource allocation - When multiple users or multiple jobs running
concurrently, resources must be allocated to each of them
• Many types of resources - CPU cycles, main memory, file
storage, I/O devices.
 Accounting (Logging) - To keep track of which users use how much
and what kinds of computer resources
 Protection and security - The owners of information stored in a
multiuser or networked computer system may want to control use of
that information, concurrent processes should not interfere with each
other

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 A View of Operating System Services

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 User and Operating System-
Interface

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Command Line interpreter

 CLI allows direct command entry

 Sometimes implemented in kernel, sometimes by systems
program
 Sometimes multiple flavors implemented – shells
 Primarily fetches a command from user and executes it
 Sometimes commands built-in, sometimes just names of
programs

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 User Operating System Interface - GUI
 User-friendly desktop metaphor interface
• Usually mouse, keyboard, and monitor
• Icons represent files, programs, actions, etc
• Various mouse buttons over objects in the interface cause
various actions

 Many systems now include both CLI and GUI interfaces

• Microsoft Windows is GUI with CLI “command” shell;
 have you seen the PowerShell in Windows 10 ?
• Apple Mac OS X is “Aqua” GUI interface with UNIX kernel underneath and
shells available
• Unix and Linux have CLI with optional GUI interfaces (CDE, KDE, GNOME,
etc. )

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Touchscreen Interfaces

 Touchscreen devices
require new interfaces
• Mouse not possible or not
desired
• Actions and selection based
on gestures
• Virtual keyboard for text entry
 Voice commands

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 System Calls

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 System Calls
 Programming interface to the services provided by the OS
 Typically written in a high-level language (C or C++)
 Mostly accessed by programs via a high-level Application
Programming Interface (API) rather than direct system call use
 Three most common APIs are:
• Win32 API for Windows,
• POSIX API for POSIX-based systems (including virtually all
versions of UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS X), and
• Java API for the Java virtual machine (JVM)

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Example of System Calls
 System call sequence to copy the contents of one file to another file

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 API – System Call – OS Relationship

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Parameter Passing via Table

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Types of System Calls

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Types of System Calls

 Process control
• create process, terminate process
• end, abort
• load, execute
• get process attributes, set process attributes
• wait for time
• wait event, signal event
• allocate and free memory
• Dump memory if error
• Debugger for determining bugs, single step execution
• Locks for managing access to shared data between processes

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 File management
• create file, delete file
• open, close file
• read, write, reposition
• get and set file attributes
 Device management
• request device, release device
• read, write, reposition
• get device attributes, set device attributes
• logically attach or detach devices

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 Information maintenance
• get time or date, set time or date
• get system data, set system data
• get and set process, file, or device attributes
 Communications
• create, delete communication connection
• send, receive messages if message passing model to host name or
process name
 From client to server
• Shared-memory model create and gain access to memory regions
• transfer status information
• attach and detach remote devices

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Types of System Calls (Cont.)

 Protection
• Control access to resources
• Get and set permissions
• Allow and deny user access

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Examples of Windows and Unix System Calls

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Standard C Library Example
 C program invoking printf() library call, which calls write() system
call

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 System Services

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 System Programs
 System programs provide a convenient environment for program
development and execution.
 They can be divided into:
• File manipulation
• Status information sometimes stored in a file
• Programming language support
• Program loading and execution
• Communications
• Background services
• Application programs
 Most users’ view of the operating system is defined by system programs,
not the actual system calls; others are considerably more complex

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 System Programs (Cont.)

 File management - Create, delete, copy, rename, print, list, and

generally manipulate files and directories
 Status information
• Some ask the system for info - date, time, amount of available
memory, disk space, number of users
• Others provide detailed performance, logging, and debugging
information
• Typically, these programs format and print the output to the
terminal or other output devices
• Some systems implement a registry - used to store and
retrieve configuration information

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 System Programs (Cont.)
 File modification
• Text editors to create and modify files
• Search contents of files or perform transformations of the text
 Programming-language support - Compilers, assemblers,
debuggers and interpreters sometimes provided
 Program loading and execution- loaders, debugging systems for
higher-level and machine language
 Communications - Provide the mechanism for creating virtual
connections among processes, users, and computer systems

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 System Programs (Cont.)
 Background Services
• Launch at boot time
Some for system startup, then terminate

 Some from system boot to shutdown

• Provide facilities like disk checking, process scheduling, error

logging, printing
• Run in user context not kernel context
• Known as services, subsystems, daemons
 Application programs
• Don’t pertain to system
• Run by users
• Not typically considered part of OS
• Launched by command line, mouse click, finger poke

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Why Applications are
Operating System Specific

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Why Applications are Operating System Specific

 Apps compiled on one system usually not executable on other operating systems

 Each operating system provides its:

• Own unique system calls
• Own file formats, binary format, etc.

 However, apps. can be multi-operating system

• Written in interpreted language like Python, Ruby, etc.
 iff interpreter available on multiple operating systems
• App. written in language that includes a VM containing the running app
 i.e. Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
• Use standard language (like C),
 compile separately on each operating system to run on each of them

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 OS Design and
Implementation
(A Software Engineering Problem)

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Design and Implementation
 Start the design by defining goals and specifications
 Affected by choice of hardware, type of system
 User goals and System goals
• User goals – operating system should be convenient
to use, easy to learn, reliable, safe, and fast
• System goals – operating system should be easy to
design, implement, and maintain, as well as flexible,
reliable, error-free, and efficient
 Specifying and designing an OS is highly creative task
of software engineering

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Implementation
 Much variation
• Early OSes in assembly language
• Then system programming languages like Algol, PL/1
• Now C, C++
 Actually, usually a mix of languages
• Lowest levels in assembly
• Main body in C
• Systems programs in C, C++, scripting languages like
PERL, Python, shell scripts

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Operating System Structure

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Operating System Structure

 General-purpose OS is very large program

 Various ways to structure ones
• Simple structure – MS-DOS
• More complex – UNIX
• Layered – an abstraction
• Microkernel – Mach

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Monolithic Structure – Original UNIX
 The UNIX OS consists of two separable parts
• Systems programs
• The kernel
 Consists of everything below the system-call interface
and above the physical hardware
 Provides the file system, CPU scheduling, memory
management, and other operating-system functions; a
large number of functions for one level

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Traditional UNIX System Structure
Beyond simple but not fully layered

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Linux System Structure
Monolithic plus modular design

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Layered Approach

 The operating system is divided

into a number of layers (levels),
each built on top of lower layers.
The bottom layer (layer 0), is
the hardware; the highest (layer
N) is the user interface.
 With modularity, layers are
selected such that each uses
functions (operations) and
services of only lower-level
layers

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Microkernels
 Moves as much from the kernel into user space
 Mach is an example of microkernel
• Mac OS X kernel (Darwin) partly based on Mach
 Communication takes place between user modules using message
passing
 Benefits:
• Easier to extend a microkernel
• Easier to port the operating system to new architectures
• More reliable (less code is running in kernel mode)
• More secure
 Detriments:
• Performance overhead of user space to kernel space
communication

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Microkernel System Structure

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Hybrid Systems
 Most modern operating systems are not one pure model
• Hybrid combines multiple approaches to address performance,
security, usability needs
• Linux and Solaris kernels in kernel address space, so monolithic,
plus modular for dynamic loading of functionality
• Windows mostly monolithic, plus microkernel for different
subsystem personalities
 Apple Mac OS X hybrid, layered, Aqua UI plus Cocoa programming
environment
• Below is kernel consisting of Mach microkernel and BSD Unix
parts, plus I/O kit and dynamically loadable modules (called
kernel extensions)

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Examples
OS Structure
Self Study

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 macOS and iOS Structure

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Darwin

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 iOS

 Apple mobile OS for iPhone, iPad

• Structured on Mac OS X, added functionality
• Does not run OS X applications natively
 Also runs on different CPU architecture
(ARM vs. Intel)
• Cocoa Touch Objective-C API for
developing apps
• Media services layer for graphics, audio,
video
• Core services provides cloud computing,
databases
• Core operating system, based on Mac OS X
kernel

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.43 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Android
 Developed by Open Handset Alliance (mostly Google)
• Open Source
 Similar stack to iOS
 Based on Linux kernel but modified
• Provides process, memory, device-driver management
• Adds power management
 Runtime environment includes core set of libraries and Dalvik
virtual machine
• Apps developed in Java plus Android API
 Java class files compiled to Java bytecode then translated
to executable thnn runs in Dalvik VM
 Libraries include frameworks for web browser (webkit), database
(SQLite), multimedia, smaller libc

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.44 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Android Architecture

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Building and Booting an
Operating System

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Building and Booting an Operating System

 Operating systems generally designed to run on a class of systems with

variety of peripherals
 Commonly, operating system already installed on purchased computer
• But can build and install some other operating systems
• If generating an operating system from scratch
 Write the operating system source code
 Configure the operating system for the system on which it will run
 Compile the operating system
 Install the operating system
 Boot the computer and its new operating system

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.47 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Building and Booting Linux

 Download Linux source code (http://www.kernel.org)

 Configure kernel via “make menuconfig”
 Compile the kernel using “make”
• Produces vmlinuz, the kernel image
• Compile kernel modules via “make modules”
• Install kernel modules into vmlinuz via “make
modules_install”
• Install new kernel on the system via “make install”

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.48 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 System Boot
 When power initialized on system, execution starts at a fixed memory
location
 Operating system must be made available to hardware so hardware
can start it
• Small piece of code – bootstrap loader, BIOS, stored in ROM or
EEPROM locates the kernel, loads it into memory, and starts it
• Sometimes two-step process where boot block at fixed location
loaded by ROM code, which loads bootstrap loader from disk
• Modern systems replace BIOS with Unified Extensible
Firmware Interface (UEFI)
 Common bootstrap loader, GRUB, allows selection of kernel from
multiple disks, versions, kernel options
 Kernel loads and system is then running
 Boot loaders frequently allow various boot states, such as single user
mode

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.49 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Operating-System Debugging

 Debugging is finding and fixing errors, or bugs

 Also performance tuning
 OS generate log files containing error information
 Failure of an application can generate core dump file capturing
memory of the process
 Operating system failure can generate crash dump file containing
kernel memory
 Beyond crashes, performance tuning can optimize system performance
• Sometimes using trace listings of activities, recorded for analysis
• Profiling is periodic sampling of instruction pointer to look for
statistical trends
Kernighan’s Law: “Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the
first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it.”

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition 2.50 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 End of Chapter 2

Operating System Concepts – 10th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018